A second swarm of around a hundred sharks gathered in the Gulf this week. The sharks can be seen dotting the ocean just outside of the Pensacola Pass June 30th 2014. Experts say shark populations are growing and suggest that may lead to more shark attacks.

Photo: WKRG.com

A second swarm of around a hundred sharks gathered in the Gulf this...

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A second swarm of around a hundred sharks gathered in the Gulf this week. The sharks can be seen dotting the ocean just outside of the Pensacola Pass June 30th 2014. Experts say shark populations are growing and suggest that may lead to more shark attacks.

A second swarm of around a hundred sharks gathered in the Gulf this...

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A groupf of dolphins join a second swarm of around a hundred sharks gathered in the Gulf this week. The sharks can be seen dotting the ocean just outside of the Pensacola Pass June 30th 2014. Experts say shark populations are growing and suggest that may lead to more shark attacks.

Photo: WKRG.com

A groupf of dolphins join a second swarm of around a hundred sharks...

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Beach goers were forced out of the water as 100 sharks swarmed the beaches around the Florida-Alabama state line earlier this summer.

Joey Polk missed out on the record books with his catch because he and his crew did not return the shark to the wild. Instead feeding it to 200 people at a community feast. The international land based shark fishing association requires sharks be released.

Photo: Joey Polk

Joey Polk missed out on the record books with his catch because he...

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Aerial footage showed more than a hundred sharks gathering off Gulf resorts in Alabama. Officials said they did not know what kind of sharks they were suggesting they could be Sand bar, Black Tip or Bull sharks.

Photo: WKRG

Aerial footage showed more than a hundred sharks gathering off Gulf...

Fisherman Noe Campus says he delivered around 30 shark pups after he got a hammerhead ashore and discovered a huge hole in her belly. He says he thinks she was bitten by another shark while she was on his line.
Photo: From Video By Ashley Violet

Fisherman Noe Campus says he delivered around 30 shark pups after he got a hammerhead ashore and discovered a huge hole in her belly. He says he thinks she was biten by another shark while she was on his line.

Photo: From Video By Ashley Violet

Fisherman Noe Campus says he delivered around 30 shark pups after...

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Fisherman Noe Campus says he delivered around 30 shark pups after he got a hammerhead ashore and discovered a huge hole in her belly. He says he thinks she was biten by another shark while she was on his line.

Photo: From Video By Ashley Violet

Fisherman Noe Campus says he delivered around 30 shark pups after...

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Fisherman Noe Campus says he delivered around 30 shark pups after he got a hammerhead ashore and discovered a huge hole in her belly. He says he thinks she was biten by another shark while she was on his line.

The number of shark attacks in the waters off U.S. beaches will rise this summer according to researchers studying the number of sharks in our waters.

Experts at the Florida Program for Shark Research say shark populations on both U.S. coasts are on the up. When coupled with increases in the number of beach goers, logic says more of us will run into one of nature's alpha predators, researchers said.

"Each year, more people are going into the water," George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research told Discovery news, "(Plus) global climate change has resulted in warmer waters to the north, prompting humans to enter waters earlier in the season, staying in them later."

All that adds up to more chances for us to run into the predatory fish.

Burgess also heads up the International Shark Attack File which tracks attacks around the world. The numbers indicate that shark attacks have gone up in the past three years, though they remain low with 47 in the U.S. last year and just one fatality.

More likely is for a swimmer to have a close encounter with a shark like the one experienced by Mikaila Amezaga in Galveston earlier this year. The 14-year-old emerged from the water with blood dripping from a tell-tale horseshoe shaped imprint of shark teeth on her back.

The teen was unfazed, saying she merely felt something bump into her. Beach patrol officers on duty that week agreed it was unlikely the shark intended to bite her, suggesting it was a case of mistaken identity.

"It happens when people maybe get mixed up with schooling fish like mullet. You get that quick bite and release because the shark thinks it's a fish," said Peter Davis from Beach Patrol at the time of the event in June, "When they realize it's not a fish, they let go."

Davis added that the shallow waters of the Texas coast make actual shark "attacks", where an unprovoked shark lunges at a person intending to harm them, very rare. There have only been 38 such attacks here since 1911, 2 were fatal.

Houston Chronicle sicene blogger Eric Berger reported earlier this week that only two people in Texas have died from shark attacks in the past 100 years.

"On the Texas Coast we don't see that many, even though the Gulf has a huge shark population," Davis said in June.

In Florida it is a different story. The Sunshine state sees the most "attacks" and the most close encounters with sometime 20-30 people reporting an incident each day in busy periods, according to shark watchers in the region.

In just the past few days a second swarm of around a hundred sharks has been spotted off Pensacola Pass.

Last month, tourist favorite Orange Beach just 20 miles away in Alabama was under a double red flag closure as shark sightings reached levels of concern.

Howver, officials there also regarded the risk of an accidental shark bite rather than an actual attack to be more serious.